Civic Forum

The Civic Forum was a political movement in the Czech part of Czechoslovakia that was active from 1989 to 1991, established during the Velvet Revolution. The movement's purpose was to unify the dissident forces in Czechoslovakia and to overthrow the communist regime, and the party's founder and leader, Vaclav Havel, was named president of a free Czechoslovakia on 29 December 1989. In April 1990, during the first free elections in Czechoslovakia since 1946, Havel was re-elected, and the Civic Forum and its Slovak counterpart, Public Against Violence, also won several seats in parliament. In June 1990, party chairman Jan Urban resigned to prevent a rift between the organization and President Havel, and Vaclav Klaus became the party's new chairman in October. His policies were opposed by other party leaders, and unity soon vanished. After the party congress in January 1991, the party divided, with the more conservative members forming the Civic Democratic Party with a clearer program advocating a free market. The more liberal members of the movement founded the Civic Movement.